Fire Service Deployment: Assessing Community Vulnerability FireCARES Project

Fire Department Core Values Protect lives, property, and the environment through preparedness, prevention, public education, and emergency response with an emphasis on quality services, efficiency, effectiveness, and safety.

Matching Resources to Risk If fire department resources (both mobile and personnel) are deployed to match the risk levels inherent to hazards in the community, it has been scientifically demonstrated that the community will be far less vulnerable to negative outcomes in… firefighter injury and death civilian injury and death property loss

Fire Department Expectations Service expectations have steadily increased Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Response to natural disasters Hazardous materials incidents Technical rescue Acts of terrorism

Fire Department Challenges budget crises rising call volume personnel and equipment shortages security issues expectation to do more with less

Challenges are Driving Dangerous Decisions Forcing decisions to cut fire department resources faster than we can evaluate their impact Cuts can leave a community without sufficient resources to respond safely and effectively

Plan to the Budget or Budget to the Plan Fire chiefs faced with policies created by municipal officials With finite budgetary resources Without a solid technical foundation for evaluating the impact of staffing and deployment decisions on the safety of the public and firefighters

The Need for Hazard Risk Assessment Traditional focus of risk assessment identification of fire hazards and planning an appropriate suppression response force Today, hazard risk assessment goes well beyond the fire problem to medical and other emergencies. Fire chiefs must assess; A wide array of hazards The risk level associated with an adverse event involving those hazards The necessary resources for response to such an event

The Need for Hazard Risk Assessment The resources (personnel and equipment) needed for the response must consider the outcomes Firefighter injury and death Civilian injury and death Property loss (and the environment)

Matching Resources to Risk Following a community hazard/risk assessment, Chiefs must prepare a plan for timely and sufficient coverage of all hazards and the adverse risk events that occur….Standard of Response Coverage. (Standards of Cover) Standards of response coverage is defined as the written policies and procedures that establish the distribution and concentration of fixed and mobile resources of an organization

Standards of Cover Resource distribution is associated with geography of the community travel time to emergencies Distribution is typically measured by the percent of the jurisdiction covered by the first-due units. Concentration is also about geography arranging of multiple resources, spacing them so that an initial "effective response force" can arrive on scene within time frames established

Matching Resources to Risk Response time goals for first-due units (distribution) and … Response time goals for the total effective on-scene emergency response force (concentration) … …Drive fire department objectives like fire station location, apparatus deployed and staffing levels.

Explaining to Decision Makers If response times and force assembly times are low, … it is an indicator that sufficient resources have been deployed and outcomes from risk events are more likely to be positive. Conversely, if response times and force assembly times are high, it is an indicator of insufficient resources and outcomes from risk events are more likely to be negative.

Fire Department Performance Resource Availability/Reliability is the degree to which the resources are ready and available to respond. Department Capability is the ability of the resources deployed to manage an incident. Operational Effectiveness is the product of availability and capability. It is the outcome achieved by the deployed resources or a measure of the ability to match resources deployed to the risk level to which they are responding

Fire Service Leaders Faced with Decisions When evaluating current capability or measuring impact of a change in the level of resources deployed, department leaders (and community officials) must decide: What resources to commit to risk management (prevention/pre-planning/preparation); What resources to commit to response/mitigation The acceptable level of risk.

Fire Service Leaders Faced with Decisions Decisions must be based on understanding of relationship between community hazards and associated risk, basic emergency response infrastructure, including fire department response capability outcomes of emergency incidents Considering these three elements AND the tools available to decision makers, a basic community vulnerability formula

Vulnerability Formula Risk Level Too few resources (-) = (-) Outcome Appropriate Resources (+) = (+) Outcome

Matching Resources to Risk If fire department resources (both mobile and personnel) are deployed to match the risk levels inherent to hazards in the community, it has been scientifically demonstrated that the community will be far less vulnerable to negative outcomes in… firefighter injury and death civilian injury and death property loss

FireCARES FireCARES = Community Assessment Response Evaluation System Same Study Team as NIST Studies DHS/AFG Grant DOD – ROGUE project

http://firecares.iaff.org/ Questions?